A CORRELATIONAL STUDY BETWEEN HABIT IN LISTENING TO ENGLISH SONGS, VOCABULARY MASTERY, AND LISTENING SKILL Zara Firsty Meutia*, Abdul Asib, A. Dahlan Rais English Education Study Program Sebelas Maret University Surakarta Email: zarafirsty@yahoo.com 341 Abstract: The study is aimed to find out the correlation between habit in listening to English songs, vocabulary mastery, and listening skill of the tenth grade students of SMA Negeri 3 Surakarta in the academic year of 2012/2013; both partially and simultaneously. This study used a test and a questionnaire. The population of the study is all of the tenth grade students while the sample is 30 students taken by cluster random sampling technique. The techniques used to analyze the data are simple and multiple correlation and regression by using SPSS 17. The results of the study show that there is a positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery toward listening skill, both partially and simultaneously. The positive correlation indicates that habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery tend to go up or to go down together with the student s listening skill. Keywords: correlation, habit, vocabulary mastery, listening skill Learning English starts since elementary school in Indonesia. There are four basic skill learnt by students in acquiring English. They are speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Helgezen in a book entitled Active Listening says that many students find listening to be the one of the most difficult skills in English. Rost (1994: 2) says listening involves both social and cognitive process that is our relationship with people and the way we structure our internal knowledge. In this sense, we see that much of input to the listener understanding language must come from inside the listener that is, from those parts of the brain that have to do with interests, beliefs, values, opinions, attitudes, motives, and background knowledge. Moreover, Rost says listening in crosscultural discourse is often challenging because of both linguistic difficulties in conversational style. Habit in listening to English song can be a practice for students in listening skill. When listening to English songs becomes a habit of the students, they will feel unfamiliar of the new words they hear because they probably ever listen to the word in the songs. As the students listen to the songs, they tend to follow the lyrics and the rhythm. It helps students catch the word in English easily because as Griffee (1994: 4) mentions sensitivity in rhythm is a basic and necessary first step in learning language. Furthermore, vocabulary mastery has an important role in achieving the listening skill and other skill in English. According to Langan, (2001: 56) a command of many words will make people become a better writer, speaker, listener, and reader. Mastering vocabulary helps students in
342 communication whether as the listener or speaker. In listening, students who have rich vocabulary will have less difficulty in catching new word or phrase. To improve listening skill, students are required to have habit in listening to English songs and master the vocabulary too. Based on the idea above, the writer is interested in studying the correlation on habit in listening to English songs, Vocabulary Mastery, and Listening Skill. Listening Skill Listening can be seen (primarily) the active use of language to access other people s meanings (Cameron, 2001: 40). In line with Cameron, Helgesen (2003: 24) states listening is an active, purposeful processing of making sense of what we hear. In order to listen, there is complex process to it. As Rivers (1978: 63) mention listening is a complex operation integrating the distinct components of perception and linguistic knowledge in ways which are at present poorly understood. Furhtermore, Rost argues succesful listening involves an integration of those component skills (1991: 4). The integration of this perception skills, analysis skill, and synthesis skills is what we call a person s listening ability. Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that listening is an active process to get people s meaning which involves understanding speaker s pronunciation, context, and meaning. Habit in Listening to English Songs Watson, as behaviorsm psychologist defines habit as a regular behavior (1924). This idea supported by Butler (1995: 61) who believes that habits are automatic routine behavior taht is repeated regularly without thinking. Similarly, Wood and Neal define habit as psychological dispositions to repeat past behavior. They are acquired gradually as people repeatedly respond in a recurring context (2007). Listening is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something that we hear (Underwood: p.1). Cameron (2001: 40) argues that listening is seen as (primarily) active use of language to access other people s meaning. Therefore, we may conclude that habit in listening to English songs is the routine and automatic activity of paying attention to get meaning by listening songs which have words, melody, rhythm sung by a singer in English words by person in daily life. Vocabulary Mastery Hatch and Brown (1995: 1) define vocabulary is a list or a set of words for a particular language or a list or a set of words that individual speakers of a language might use. According to Linse (2005: 121), vocabulary is the collection of words that an individual knows. Furthermore, McCharty in Burns and Joyce (2001) states that vocabulary consists of words, freestanding items of language that have meaning. RESEARCH METHOD The research methodology used in this study is a correlational method. There are two kind variables in this study, namely dependent variable and independent variable. The dependent variable in this study is listening skill (Y), while the independent variables are habit in listening to English songs (X 1) and vocabulary mastery (X 2). It can be drawn there is positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and listening skill; there is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and listening skill; and there is positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery simultaneously listening skill.
343 The research was carried out at SMAN 3 Surakarta in September 2012, which was conducted on the tenth grade students of SMAN 3 Surakarta in the academic year 2012/2013. The sample of the study is 30 students taken by cluster random sampling technique. The data are collected by using test and questionnaire. The test are used to collect vocabulary mastery data (in the form of multiple choice test which consist of 50 items) and listening skill (in the form of multiple test and essay which consist of 45 items), while the questionnaire is used to collect the data is used to collect the data of habit in listening to English songs (which consist of 25 items having four alternatives positive and negative items). In this study, the validity test is using Product Moment Formula and the reliability test is using Kuder-Richardson for multiple choice instrument (the discrete score) and Alpha Croanbach for questionnaire instrument (continuum score). The technique which is used to analyze the data was Linear Regression Analysis Statistic by using SPSS 17. The researcher tests the hypothesis using Product Moment and Multiple Linear Regression Formula. Product Moment Formula is used to describe the strength of relationship between two variables (single correlation), while Multiple Linear Regression is used to describe the strength between several independents variables and one dependent variable (multiple correlation). Before entering Linear Regression Analysis, there is major pre-requirement analysis for the data. They are normality test using Lilliefors formula, homogeneity test using Bartlett formula, linearity and significance using Anova test. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The results of normality data can be described as follows: Table 1. Table of One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test X1 X2 Y N 30 30 30 Normal Parameters a,,b Mean 67.6667 77.6000 74.0333 Std. Deviation 7.82716 12.07334 9.77147 Most Extreme Differences Absolute.116.147.146 Positive.116.087.091 Negative -.082 -.147 -.146 Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z.636.807.802 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed).813.533.541 a. Test distribution is Normal. b. Calculated from data. Based on the result of Significance Correction from Kolmogorov-Smirnov, it can be concluded that significance value of habit in listening to English songs (X1) is 0.813 > 0.05; vocabulary mastery (X2) is 0.533 > 0.05; and listening skill (Y) is 0.541 > 0.05. So, from the result above the data are in normal distribution. The results of homogeneity data can be described as follows:
344 Table 2. Table of Homogeneity Test Variant dk Value X 2 o Table Result Y for X1 8 4.610 Homogeneous Y for X2 13 5.921 Homogenous Based on the result of Bartlett Formula, because Chi-Square value is lower than Chi-Square table, so the variant data are homogeneous. The first hypothesis finds that the computation of analysis regression X1 and Y, it is found that coefficient a = 39.743, and b = 0.507, so equation regression is = 39.743 + 0.507 X1. The significance of regression is found that Fo = 5.524, and Ft = 4.11 in the level of significance α = 0.05 and degree of freedom (df = 1:28). Because Fo > Ft, so the regression of X1 and Y is significant. So, it can used to predict the correlation between habit in listening to English songs (X1) and listening skill (Y); it shows that the mean of listening skill (Y) would increase 0.507 if habit in listening to English songs (X1) was increased one score in the constant score of 39.743. The coefficient of correlation is rx1y = 0.406. Then, this value is compared to r-table at the significance level of 5% for N = 30, it is 0.361. The effective contribution of habit in listening to English songs toward listening skill was 17.23%, it means that 17.23% of listening skill is influenced by habit in listening to English songs factor. James (2010) states habit as an automatic and mindless behavior to develop consistency and regularity in the healthful behavior in daily life. Brown and Yule ˆ (1983) define listening to as the activity of paying attention to and get meaning from something we hear. Habit in listening to English songs means listening and paying attention to English songs repeatedly in daily life. Murphey (1998: 3) says listening to English songs offers two main advantages that it is highly memorable and highly motivating especially for young learners. Because students have habit in listening to English songs, students will be easier to understand what they listen. The result is habit in listening to English songs contributes to listening skill. In other words, there is positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and listening skill. It also means that the increase of habit in listening to English songs will be followed by the improvement of students listening skill. The second hypothesis finds that the computation of analysis regression X2 and Y, it is found that coefficient a = 31.767, and b = 0.545, so the equation regression is = 31.767 + 0.545 X2. The significance of regression is found that Fo = 23.178, and Ft = 4.11 in the level of significance α = 0.05 and degree of freedom (df = 1:28). Because Fo > Ft, so the regression of X2 and Y is significant. So, it can used to predict the correlation between vocabulary mastery (X2) and listening skill (Y); it shows that the mean of listening skill (Y) would increase 0.545 if the vocabulary mastery (X2) was ˆ
345 increased one score in the constant score of 31.767. The coefficient of correlation is rx2y = 0.673. Then, this value is compared to r- table at the significance level of 5% for N = 30, it is 0.361. It means that rx2y is higher than rt. It means that the correlation is significant; the effective contribution of vocabulary mastery toward listening skill was 46.06%, it means that 46.06% of listening skill is influenced by vocabulary mastery factor. Cameron (2001: 72) states building up vocabulary is central to the learning of a foreign language. It shows that vocabulary mastery plays an essential role in learning English. Wilkins (2002: 13) says without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. By having large scope in vocabulary, students will be easier to grasp the meaning from what they listen. The analisys result above there is positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and listening skill. It means that the increase of students vocabulary mastery is followed by the increase of students listening skill. The third hypothesis finds that from the computation of multiple regression, it is found that the coefficient of a0, a1, and a2 are -4.804; 0.530; and 0.554, so the multiple regression equation of Y on X1 and X2 becomes; ˆ = -4.804 + 0.530 X1 + 0.554 X2. The testing result of the significance of regression for Fo is 23.272. This result is compared to F-table at the significance level of 5% and degree of freedom (df = 2:27) is 3.23. It means that Fo (26.367) is higher than Ft(2,47) (3.35), so Fo is significant. So, it can used to predict the correlation between habit in listening to English songs (X1) and vocabulary mastery (X2) and listening skill (Y); it means that in every one score increase from habit in listening to English songs (X1) together with vocabulary mastery (X2) it increases 1.084 of listening skill (Y) in the constant score 4.804. The coefficient of correlation (Ry12) is 0.7955 and (R 2 ) is 0.6329. The effective contribution is 63.29%, it shows that habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery are some factors that influence listening skill. It means 36.71% factors that influence listening skill are come from habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery factors, then 47.12% the rest was determined by other factors. According to Rost (1991: 4), successful listening involves an integration of other component skills. He mentions the necessary component of listening ability such as recognizing words, identifying grammatical grouping of words, and discriminating between sounds. To improve students listening skill, they need to improve their vocabulary mastery first and familiar with sounds and words they hear. So, habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery are important factors in listening skill. And the result is that there is positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery simultaneously to listening skill. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION From the study, it can be concluded that there is a positive correlation between habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery toward listening skill, both partially and simultaneously when in every one score increase from habit in listening to English songs (X1) together with vocabulary mastery (X2) it increases 0.795 of listening skill (Y) in the constant score of 4.804. It also means that habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery contribute to listening skill; with the effective contribution 63.29% in which
346 17.23% from habit in listening to English songs and 46.06% from vocabulary mastery. Considering habit in listening to English songs and vocabulary mastery contribute to listening skill, it is useful for the teacher to increase students habit in listening to English songs and improve the students vocabulary mastery. In order to increase the student s habit in listening to English songs, teacher should using song in classroom to teach listening. While to improve students vocabulary mastery, teacher should improve their professional skill, especially in vocabulary. It can be through fromal education or informal education. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practice. San Francisco State: Longman. Burns, Anne. 1999. Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, Lynne. 2001. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraenkel, Jack R., and Wallen, Norman E. 2000. How to Design and Evaluate research in Education. Boston: McGraw-Hill Companies. Griffee, Dale T. 1995. Songs in Action. Hertfordshire: International Book Distribution Ltd. Hatch, Evelyn and Cheryl Brown. 1995. Vocabulary, Semantics, and Language Education. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Helgesen, Marc and Steven Brown. 2007. Practical English Language Teaching. Langan, John. English Skills (7 th ed). New York: McGraw- Hill Companies, Inc. Langan, John. 2001. English Skills (7 th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Linse, C. T. (ed.). 2005. Practical English Language Teaching: Young Learners. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Mc Carthy, Michael. 1990. Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murphey, Tim. 1992. Music and Songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neal, D. T., & Wood, W. 2009. Automaticity in situ: Direct context cuing of habits in daily life. The Psychology of Action. Mechanism of Human Action, Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. Neal, D. T., & Wood, W., Wu, M., &Kurlander, D. 2011. Habitual eating: When do habits trump attitudes, and when do attitudes trump habits?. Personality and Social psychology Bulletin. Rost, Michael. 1991. Listening in Action. UK: Prentice Hall International. Rost, Michael. 1996. Listening in Language Learning. UK: Longman Group. Underwood, Mary. 1998. Listening. UK: Prentice Hall International.